


the eye has to travel

by SecretReyloTrash (BadOldWest)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Object Insertion, Pining, Sexual Tension, assistant Rey, bisexual rey, but not for long, costume department au, costume designer Kylo, dressmaker au, fun with measuring tape, let's just say there's a lot of foreplay in the form of dialogue and future smut, new meaning to the word 'shoegasm', phantom thread inspired, rey hates her boss, tailoring kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-06-11 07:01:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15309975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadOldWest/pseuds/SecretReyloTrash
Summary: Kylo Ren is the head of the Costume Department for the Star Alliance Opera. Rey is his beleaguered assistant. It’s hell. She’s slowly crumbling under endless hours of work and impossible standards. Being a broke post-grad, their most recent argument is fought over the condition of Rey’s personal wardrobe and her inability to find anything appropriate for the Opening Night Gala this season. Kylo insists he’s handled the problem by making her dress himself, but has he? It just seems like he's making Rey stay late after work out of spite, for hours of fittings, alone with him.





	1. Chapter 1

“Please don’t hold your breath.”

Rey lets in a shaky puff of air. Kylo adjusts the tape measure accordingly around her ribs as they expand. Laughable, a costumer’s assistant who had nothing to wear to opening night of the opera she’d been helping him with the wardrobe of. Fidgeting during a fitting like the performers he’s gotten irritated with for the same reason, getting measured by him with the strict, unforgiving numbers of her proportions and his assessing gaze now turned on her. 

“I’m really sorry about this,” her hands fist in her skirt as she struggles to stand still. Her palms are sweaty and feels ashamed and small, like a little girl. Kylo has a habit of making her feel hopelessly clumsy and childish next to his perfectly-tailored zen. She can’t even sit still at one the machines to do her job; kneeling half on her chair with one leg folded under her, the other touching the floor as she sort of half-stands to do her work. It drives him crazy, she can tell. 

“Well, you represent the department. We can’t have you poorly dressed for an event with the board of trustees and donors.”

Her face flushes; he’d been the one to insist she bring the outfit she’s planned to wear to the Opening Gala for him to approve weeks in advanced, so obviously this was something he was prepared to do. There still had been a flurry of activity about it last night; he’d shoved a polaroid camera from his office into her hands before she went home and insisted she bring in the prints of her alternative options. The teal prom dress that was  _already_  secondhand when she wore it to prom seven years ago was a no-go; even if she spent a week and half of her sanity studding it with lesage embroidery and a few silk flowers. He’d all but laughed at it. The rest of her night had been calling everyone she knew near her height and weight with  _‘my boss is going to fire me if I don’t look ready to go to the MetGala on an only-eats-ramen-budget’_. Even then a near-argument later and a lot of iciness from his side of the room as they worked today had finally led to him breaking three hours silence with abrupt insisting that _he_  would outfit her properly, and her stack of photographed ‘other options’ was flung in the trash. 

Kylo struck her as the kind of man who wore a tuxedo to bed, and  _probably well,_ so she knew nothing would satisfy him from the start. 

“I don’t _have_ to go,” she ducks her head to try to look over her shoulder and down at him, but a firm hand plants on the nape of her neck. 

“Look forward,” he commands in his near-whisper. “We prefer to outfit many of the performers, it’s no trouble to throw in a dress for you. And I need you there in case of wardrobe malfunction- I spend a lot of these events just fixing hems in the washroom. You  _can_  make it up to me by sitting still.”

Even then her knee bends, tired of standing even for him to lace a tape measure around her with the severity of a corset; as far as Lady’s-Maids went he had the approachability of Mrs. Danvers.

“There’s nothing in storage?” she tries hopefully. She could tailor that, if need be. 

She hears the scratch of his pencil as he writes her measurements. Loaded, disapproving silence. The worst thing was the look he gave her when he had to kneel on the ground in a three piece suit to measure  _his assistant_. Gorgeous hand-stitched carmine pocket square. Not that she kept track. 

“You know, I wouldn’t do this for a worse assistant,” his tone is meant to flatten her into submission, “for what it’s worth.”

Rey folds her hands in front of her obediantly. 

“Thank you. I know I could never afford an original of yours. It will be an honor to wear it.”

This is true. She’s caught up on his career, fielding phone calls from celebrity clients and updating his portfolio along with her sewing duties. She is serving under a master, even if her friends think she’s crazy.

“Uh huh,” he slides the tape up her ribcage to get up her bust. Unconvinced. Not believing her attempts to look on the bright side. In actuality, she has to stay late and knows he’ll make her  _suffer_  for it. 

“You can just leave the pattern with me and I’ll work late, how about that? This shouldn’t be your responsibility. I’m sorry, my wardrobe has needed an update for a while now…”

_As has her bank account._

“You’ve never built a gown this elaborate before,” his tone is clipped. “It’s better if you leave it to me.”

She chews her lips at the tug of the tape under her breasts. 

“I need you to lift your arms.”

She shudders when he slips the ribbon of the tape around her bust. It hits right over her nipples, even over her blouse it is chillingly stimulating.

“Please sit still.”

She tries not to move.

“You’re holding your breath again.”

_“Sorry.”_

…

Rey is being dressed in a rough mock-up of her dress. All she can tell at this point in construction is is _it's black_ and _it's a gown_. Everyone else got to go home hours ago. Her fingers are trembling from hand-beading an opera gown for a character going to the opera while in an opera. Donors got to sometimes see costume demonstrations; their money was going into her work for them to see in an afternoon over tea. Wrinkly hands pawing at her hours of lesage beading detail, patronizingly complimenting her hard work. Kylo skipped those events down to the last five minutes, making a little speech Leia Organa forced out of him out of obligation.

Rey understands this about him, usually reserving him a glass of champagne and a stilted joke about all the blue hair.

 She appreciates the objective beauty of all that work, but no one appreciated her from what was on the stage no matter how much they paid for box seats.

“How much skin are you comfortable showing?”

“Um,” she looks down at the rough shape. “I don’t exactly  _have much_  to spill out of a dress. Obviously you’re my boss, so whatever you deem, um, appropriate.”

He makes a noncommittal noise that does make her nervous. She had chosen to be as accommodating as possible because he was so annoyed with her, and they had to work long hours together. Was that a bad idea?

Cologne wafts up from where he kneels, adjusting the hem. Sharp and intrusive, sort of like him. There’s always a cloud of it when she gets home; her last few dates took it as an omen. They were all first dates. There was rarely a second. 

Her boss’s aura filling all of her time was a running theme; Jess and Rose shooting her pitying looks as she tried on the dresses they brought over and took polaroids of her mid-panic attack trying to please him for the right dress for the upcoming event. Her showing up late for everything in her social life. Her slinking guiltily out of the sewing room with the other seamstresses when he ordered her back to his side. 

_“Sometimes I just don’t know what his intentions for you are,” Rose said carefully as Rey was hyperventilating, struggling to zip up a dress Jess had worn to a wedding. Technically, it was an orange sari. At that point in the night, Rey wasn’t getting selective about the definition of formalwear, culturally sensitive or not. Both girls quietly talked her down from taking a frantic polaroid of that one._

“Can I know what it’s going to look like?”

He’s been stingy with his sketches of her outfit. 

“Isn’t the surprise part of the fun?”

If she doesn’t know any better, she’d swear that was a joke out of him.

“For me or for you?”

“For me, the fun is that I’m making you wear me,” he tucks his fingers into the seam that edges the cutout at her back, where the label would go. “I’ll be right here the whole time.”

He'd be everywhere, actually. Clinging to her body, sliding down her legs. Cupping her back, supporting her breasts. He has to know her body very well for a hand-crafted gown. 

She shivers. 

“Stay still.”

…

The coming weeks are chaos of fittings and alterations. The whole company’s; for the performance, for the party, and for her. 

_“Did you lose weight?”_

His tone is deadly. She’s half asleep on her feet in his office, blindfolded because he doesn’t want her to see it yet. It makes a certain sense, but it feels a little too kinky, a little too serial killer for her boss. They aren’t exactly chummy. For Christmas he gave her a black umbrella and a scarf. The umbrella had cost seventy dollars, she opted not to find out how much rent she could pay by hocking the scarf. She had given him a pocket square she had made from a vintage Japanese fabric and the business card of a secondhand shop where she had located a 1920′s Singer sewing machine. He did buy himself the machine from there. And wore the pocket square more than once.

“Uh? Yeah? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not when I’m using measurements from before that to build this gown.”

He pinches her side, the fabric drawing away from her body a good few inches.

“I’m sorry, I thought, I assumed-”

“That just makes more work for me. And there was nothing wrong with your body before.”

Rey can't help it, she starts crying. Working under him has been so much pressure and she sincerely wants to please him. His disappointment _burns._

The blindfold should hide it but she's shaking and her face crumples and despite lasting longer than a lot of his assistants _(she was told once he usually kept two at a time to keep them from losing their minds)_ she has her breaking point and it's while he's lying on the floor somewhere in a sleek indigo suit that she finds _divine._

"What's wrong?"

 _"I just want to be good for you,"_ she blurts out, her hands flying up over her mouth. Oh god. What that a fireable offense? Even she couldn't deny the sexual undertone...

"Rey," he rarely uses her name, but his voice is controlled and careful "You are good for me. You're so good for me. This is supposed to be your reward."

"I _-what?"_

 _"_ Just accept it," his tone is more closed off, gruff. "And don't lose weight, _ever,_ to fit into one of my designs."

“I, uh,” she blinks behind the blindfold. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I’ve just been working a lot  _-which I’m super grateful for, thank you this opportunity it is such an honor to be a part of the Star Alliance-_  and I guess I’m not getting three square mea-”

She hears him sigh in frustration. There’s a quiet pull at her skirt; he must be sewing still. The dress has her arms bare, her spine bare in a cutout, and the from the feel of it, a good plunge to the neckline. This prospect only slightly terrifies her.

“It’s that point in the season,” his tone is even, if she should dare to think it, apologetic. “Everything’s chaos. It’ll get easier once we go into production. I’m sorry if I’m a monster right now. You’re a capable seamstress, and you have excellent taste. Once your budget can reflect that, I’m sure you’ll wind up in a few magazines from these events, really cash in on that It Girl image that everyone wants to be.”

That's not what she wanted.

“T-thank you, Mr. Ren.”

This is way too nice for her to be blindfolded during. She is now convinced this is a prank.

“For my dress. I’m sure it’ll be lovely.”

The reason she hadn’t quit was plain; he was a genius. Rose and Jess wanted to strangle her when she said it. But it was true. She cried when she saw the sketches of what they were going to do for  _Madame Butterfly_. Poured out a glass of wine and sobbed at her kitchen table. He hand-drew all the prints. _The color scheme-_

“I don’t mind. I have to do this for my mother every season, plenty of the Sopranos demand customs around this time. You’re a better model than I’m used to.”

And she blushes. 

“Now for the final fitting;” he unzips her. He helps her shrug the dress off very carefully, but it still means standing here in her bra and leggings in front of her boss until she hears the garment bag zip up. She hears him walk towards her, stopping about a foot away. 

He doesn’t move for a good two minutes. She’s too scared to take off the blindfold. 

So he does, handing her the shirt she wore to work today. She blinks around his office. It’s all windows, there’s a few lights on in the surrounding buildings, and she has a brief moment of exquisite panic that someone saw him looking at her without a shirt on.

He removes his pocket square and dabs her eyes with it. She sniffles, embarrassed, rubbing them raw with her hand instead. Her eyeliner is on that beautiful mustard-colored silk. She's horrified.

“This dress is considered couture. That means it is meant to be worn without undergarments because of the construction.”

She nods, but winces. That's a lot of skin for her boss, even if he seems completely uninterested from all the measuring-tape-feels he got to cop.

"I," he looks down at her, his expression gentle. "I wanted to do this for you, Rey. As your reward. Because you have been good."

"Oh."

He pulls away. 

"You should get a late dinner while you can. I'll finish up here."

She's blushing until she gets into the elevator. 

As she's pulling her bags of take out over the counter at probably the last Chinese place still open at that time of night, she realizes there's no one in the office reminding him to eat too.


	2. Chapter 2

_“He’s_  a monster.  _You’re_  amazing.”

Finn’s arms slip supportively around her shoulders. She sees in the reflection of one of the frying pans hanging on the wall in front of them that he is casting furtive glances to Rose, who is gesturing anxiously back at him. 

“Yes, but in this industry, I’m  _nobody,_  and he’s my boss. I just don’t think I can hold out in this job long enough…long enough…for it to matter. It feels like it’s hopeless.”

Rey rapidly folds her hair into a semi-bun as she speaks, the windup of the meltdown gone and her tone implying it was over, even if her words didn’t. It’s all in a rush, especially the process of identifying her insecurities. She found that if she cut the meltdowns short, so she wouldn’t be late for work. 

Did this make her efficient, or an even bigger mess?

“Ask him if he’s found a second assistant yet. Wasn’t he on the search?”

“It would take me too much time to train an underling and he has more pressing work he needs me to fill,” she responds evenly with a direct quote, stepping into her high heels. Sometimes the kitchen with Finn for a breakfast she won’t even eat is the only time to make a social appearance during her day, and she especially sticks it out if Rose stayed the night before so she can say she talked to  _two_  people outside of work. It still is the worst kind of tease; Finn’s grilling breakfast sausage that makes her mouth water longingly, Rose is one of his tee shirts instead of a constricting blouse and stockings for Kylo’s implied dress code. 

She’d eat, but Finn buys all the groceries, and he’s already buying them to share with his girlfriend, and she feels awful about impeding on his generosity now that it’s less exciting with her taking a third. She oversells the deliciousness of her granola bar instead. 

She glances at the time. It didn’t matter if she was ready or not, it was time to power down and disengage the usual  _“my boss is a nightmare”_ routine. Because he was a genius. And she might be in love with him. And he was making her a custom gown that was probably worth more than this New York City apartment.

“You  _can_ quit, Rey,” Rose says gently, but Rey shakes her head. 

“I’m just venting!” she sing-songs too cheerily, and slips out the door knowing full well they were going to talk about how hopeless she was as soon as she was gone.

…

She’s going slightly mad, and yet nothing in this world makes sense until she’s off her morning train and launching herself up the steps outside the Opera house. She feels unique, exclusive, slipping through the elevators for all the people behind the art. Nothing she owns is expensive, but pairs well together, so she can pretend to feel glamorous in her long wool coat and her gloves that match her shoes, she gets to feel like a lady when she accessories even to her budget. (They all have to be brown to be safe, because it's the budget she's on and her shoes are brown and they have to match).

It’s robotic when she’s pulled up at his pretentious personal espresso machine so she never walks into his office empty-handed, always praying he rejects it on his own self appointed straight-edge kick so she can suck it down lukewarm after their meeting before she has to do sewing work. 

At least Kylo Ren is a _predictable_  high-maintenance genius.

He's cranky in the morning, ponderous in the afternoon, resigned in the evening. Anything he says after Seven PM should not count as gospel but should be subject to change. He'll blast the drape of a gown at the end of the evening and demand it be redone, and come back in the morning with the concept fixed from a night of intense thinking and is fine with the piece instead just being re-tailored. Then in the afternoon, he'll just want to rework it again, but with a milder tone. 

And then on Fridays whatever pieces were made that week have reached a state of finality, he examines them as a collection, softly dictating notes on them to Rey, who scribbles them on a notepad and tries not to smile as he focuses on the details. At least, in the early weeks of the season where it was just conceptual work. Now Fridays are filled with fittings and everyone is miserable. The only thing she writes down are measurements, taking mental note of his black moods. 

The first meeting of the day was a terrifying precipice that usually determined how hard the fall of night would come. Today, he seems tranquil enough, waving off the china cup in her hand, pinning something on a dressform. He motions for her to sit on the plush red velvet settee in the center of his office. She said her usual morning hello to the Caravaggio wall mural he has across from his desk of a violent usurping of power between two men, one of them unexpectedly stabbed by the other.

“Miss Niima,” he’s prompt today, choosing not to ignore her over his dressform for once. It is clearly a gown for one of the older performers, and _fussy_ and _floral_ are words she’d throw out as descriptors. “Did you sleep well last night?”

She’s trying to decipher the two names floating around in her head that she needed to be on the lookout in case they called the office today;  _was it Canady from Montreal or Mitaka from San Francisco? Or was Mitaka from Montreal?_ But he slides easily across the room and retrieves a box from one of his shelves.

Rey draws a complete blank. “Pardon?”

Her diction, thanks to his strictness, is in the least very crisp after working for him since Fall. 

“I hope you feel well rested after last night.”

Right. Her sleeping during her fitting. She finds herself smiling, in the way she always does, trying to prove that she can do this and that this job isn't too much. “Yes, so sorry about that. I did. I got a few orders done, got dinner-”

She looks at her hands instead of continuing. He quirks an eyebrow.

“Orders?”

“I run an Etsy shop. Part-time.” She blushes. “Just to be making something.”

Just to pay the bills, it was more like, because she didn’t appreciate the process when her fingers were trembling from work and her side-hustle by the time she went to bed every night. 

“What do you sell?”

“Um…” _panties._ She sells custom, lacey panties and bralettes with curse words stitched in conspicuous places.  _“Loungewear.”_

He looks amused. “What’s your market for that?”

“Not quite novelty but…personality. For fun young women with a sense of humor. I spent my first few paychecks on an embroidery machine so I add in little cheeky phrases on the hip or the…hemline.”

_Right above the ass._

“That’s quite…charming.” he looks amused. She’s mortified. Is she truly talking about her custom-panty side hustle with her boss?

“Did Canady call?” she blurts out, just wanting to do what she at least knows. He shakes his head, leans against his desk. This is the first time she’s been in his office and he wasn’t doing twelve things at once. He just looks at her.

“Today we’re running a few errands.”

Usually she had advanced warning before he made her race all around town; and could stash trainers in her bag to change into when she left the building. No such luck today. She offered a silent prayer to her toes.

“I need to pick up a few textile samples on reserve.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rey waits for her instructions. 

“And then I thought we’d get lunch.”

_“Oh.”_

Usually them running errands meant splitting up to cover more ground. They'd never run errands... _together._ He looks wary of waiting for her to catch up to his meaning. 

“Sorry. Yes, alright. Let me get my coat.”

…

“I was wondering what your contacts were for locating that Singer machine.”

_Contacts?_

Rey swallows, feeling incredibly prim as Kylo tucks her and then himself into a cab. She hasn’t been able to hack it for cab fair since moving to the city. 

Her skirt rides up on her landing into the worn seat cushion, revealing a good amount of her stockings and garter clips. She knows he notices, casting his eyes to the back of the driver’s head like that saves her some privacy. She adjusts in the moments he's spared her.

“I like looking for old things, tinkering with them. I have a friend, Maz, who owns the store where I found your machine because I was frequenting it, I found it on accident with my friend Finn.”

Kylo gives a firm but quiet order of where to be driven and Rey tries to pin her skirt with her crossed knees so it doesn’t ride up. He’s so long-legged they can’t help but be touching, but she can maintain enough decorum to keep the bare skin from…

“I was wondering how many she gets in. I collect antique Singers, so it was a good find on your part.”

 _“I know,”_  she swallows, staring ahead out the windshield, because she found the machine  _for him._

She drops her purse on the seat to hold her skirt down with her folded hands. She'd rather be sewing, when he releases her to the sewing room she can be as sloppy and crass as she wants. She can work herself into a frenzy and tell him that _no, the fabric is too delicate for eight pleats at the waist, especially when her fingers were swollen from six hours of lesage embroidering, thank you-_

She was more herself when she was able to do what she was good at, and that was making clothes. The running around, supporting his lifestyle, doing anything beyond his creative output: that she did with a smile and poison on her tongue. 

She was serene for his sake. Often to the point she wondered how frightened he would be, if he could read her mind. 

"What's my gown going to look like?" She nudges him with her shoulder. She can blame the tight space of the cab, but at least she gets a good look at his custom cufflinks today. Details. The details always fascinate her. 

He shakes his head. "A surprise. I'm enjoying creating it though, it's been nice to unwind when I get home with something, well, without limitations."

Shock that he's spending a minute longer on it than he has to overtakes her. "I hope it's not too much-"

He hears her appeasing tone, anticipating it, "It's something I want to do for you. And I want to introduce you to some of my suppliers today."

_"Why?"_

"Because you're talented. And I've been hard on you," he glances out the window, his face impossible to read, "I suppose I do it because I have a horrible temper and I know that you're tough. My trust that you can take it has been unfair to you. It's a situation I hope you know I am trying to remedy."

"It's my job," she says with false cheer. He shakes his head. 

"And building a gown for someone, with the fittings that we've had...it's deeply personal. I suppose since I now know how intensely ticklish you are at the back of your knee, I can't verbally abuse you in the workroom anymore."

Rey laughs at his embarrassed tone, the flush that might even be rising on his cheeks. Her own legs tenses at even the mention of his fingers brushing her there. "Well then, since you know me so well, I can't wait to see it."

His smile is dangerous. 

"I can't wait to put it on you."

…

“I’ll order for you, if it’s all the same.”

Rey’s back straightens. She bites her tongue.  _He’s a control freak, just let him be a control freak and don’t care **you can’t change him you just have to not care.**_

“Sure.”

She blinks around The Russian Tea Room. It's her first time there, not for lack of dreaming of it's rich interiors, but she didn't think anyone not in a Kate Spade ad actually ever went there. But it's a fancy sort of occasion, this business lunch. She's got five thousand dollars worth of antique Japanese silk in the bag next to her from Kylo dragging her around the city. This is why she tailed her boss. Because when you work for the Opera, with its donors and prestige and reputation, your art got a whole new level of "Fuck You" money thrown behind it.

“How did you find yourself going into costume design?”

Kylo shakes his head as he straightens his silverware. “About as passively as one can. I was studying in order to start my own label and after that went about as badly as one could prepare for my mother pulled some strings. I’d rather be doing couture.”

“So I’m merely an excuse,” her smile into her teacup is sly. It is somehow the perfect accessory to tease men. He raises his eyebrows. 

“I suppose I am trying to capture some of those old feelings,” he’s cautious in that answer. Rey tries to remain prim in the face of someone who always made her feel coarse.

“Tell me more about this online store you have.”

She swallows her tea down quickly, burning her tongue. It was unnerving to hear someone refer to anything she did as professional, especially phrased more officially. Her little Etsy shop was hardly anything she framed as her online store. It was her self-deprecating pitch she'd sometimes make as small talk to other women.

“Well, it’s vintage-inspired intimates. I’d seen some reference photos of tap pants and drawers around WWII with these… _saucy_ embroidered phrases on them. It made me smile, I would practice lettering on my own garments and a female friend saw them and wanted the same sort of thing, it just took off.”

Like _Lucky You_  in cursive over the ass.

Or  _Don’t bite._

Or, for special occasions, simply _Well, fuck me._

Kylo smiles, but all of his smiles are somewhat posed. His eyes do have a rare lightness to them. “I’ve seen those, the vintage ones at least. Most were actually sent as novelty items to GIs on the front.”

She nods, the silky pictures conjured up in her mind, but those seem cartoonish and vulgar when laid out in front of him. Is she really picturing herself in her line of intimates, spread out on a table of the Russian Tea Room for Kylo Ren? So he could read her painstakingly-embroidered knickers that said _May I feel?_

“I use more mesh, breathable things, and somewhat less…pedestrian,” She sips again, not knowing she had to do her elevator-pitch today. It was just a way to help with the bills. “I like using poetry quotes, Dorothy Parker quotes, I have a line of Sappho poetry ones that sell really well.”

The crystal of his water glasses pauses against his lush lower lip. Without sipping, he lowers it down in shock. 

“How deliciously naughty to have a Sappho quote so near to a woman’s sex.”

She smiles, pleased she’s amused him, but there’s an instinct that clamps down on her to not share sly smiles with Kylo Ren. Though she can’t help enjoy the understanding in his humor; the creations were during a well needed break from men and she wanted to embody that resentment by testing out lesbian poetry on whoever undressed her. The reference was lost on virtually anyone who got her naked; though women were charmed by it upon explanation and men…

It was there to remind herself why she didn’t often go home with men anymore. 

She tries not to picture him peeling off her dress and chuckling at the discovery:

_The sun is the enemy of lovers_

or 

_blame Aphrodite_

stitched in teal across her hip.

“It definitely serves as a reminder more than it keeps out the sort of person I’d want to weed out in the first place.”

“Because anyone who recognizes it you would rather consent to? I’d imagine some who do recognize it might be intimidated.”

“And there’s a niche who both recognize it, feel no intimidation, and call it charming.”

He looks up at her sheepishly.

"Just women?"

“Intellectual men who are fine with bisexuality.” She takes a sip of tea, just the right temperature this time. Kylo's eyebrows raise. She'd dare to call them playful. This does not feel like a business lunch as much as it feels like one of these new "rewards" he's tossing around.

Their waitress drops a tiered tray of tea cakes at Kylo's side of the table, to be divvied onto two small plates between them.

Her mouth waters.

"Please, eat," he instructs her, selecting a salmon and caviar blini for himself. She takes the same, and a cucumber sandwich, and a mint green petit four. There's something she appreciates about him bringing her here to try a little bit of everything, because she may never get the chance again at a place like this, like he knows she hasn't been spoiled in a while.

"Where were we," and she tenses around her bite, because there's a business-like tone to his voice. "Oh, yes. Intellectual men who appreciate bisexuality."

She tries not to laugh up crumbs onto the table. "Hard to find."

"How are your sales for the business?"

She waves a hand in front of her.

“It's just an Etsy shop. My stuff doesn't even sell that well. I mostly do custom orders, that’s mostly my business. A lot of,” her nose wrinkles.  _“Brides_  asking me to do their husband’s names.”

He laughs at the tackiness, but his next question is a prompt:

“You object?”

“I suppose it’s better than a tattoo but it’s got that same  _branding_  implication.”

Kylo smiles, but it’s brutal. It is skewering her into the red booth behind her. “Having a name in someone’s clothes is nothing to sneer at.”

She remembers his fingers proudly strumming where his label would be against her body. 

She’s done it now. She’s hit the wasp’s nest of his professional pride with a baseball bat. Now for the swarm. 

“Depends on the man,” she amends, but only so not to surrender.

Kylo seems to like the challenge in her voice. This is her boss. What is she doing?

He nods, taking a sip of his water. There’s a grace to anything he does; nothing is meaningless. “I want to play a game with you.”

“Go on.”

 _“Location_ is the only thing that matters. Money is no object, availability is no object, history is no object; you can wear anything you want to this place, right now. What would you be wearing?”

She ends her reply with a lush bite out of a pink petit four, the jam dancing on her tongue as she savors his laugh:

“You assume I didn’t pick this outfit today in anticipation that my boss takes me to lunch at one of the most glamorous places I can think of?”

“Haven’t opened your coat yet so I might assume correctly.”

At this she blushes. She does feel shabby. Tasteful, but shabby. She looks around the emerald and ruby interior. She likes neutrals that drape well. Tailoring over embellishment. But it's not suited to _here._

"If I wish it, it could be a suit of armor?"

He nods. Prodding her fantasy. "Anything you want."

She can picture it. What she wants is right on her tongue. She could see herself, sitting across from herself in the red booth, smiling coyly at a plate of blinis, red lipstick catching beads of caviar. Decadence. 

"Full Dolce and Gabbana," she says after a moment. Her nose wrinkles in a rare moment of unrestrained joy. "One of their fifties silhouette, black bustier and swing skirt dresses with 3/4 sleeves. Flowers and gold cherubs in my done-up hair. Rubies on my throat. Like an Italian Catholic widow and a Prima Ballerina in one."

He laughs as he pours himself some tea, pinching the bridge of his nose as he pictures it.

Her tone gentles. 

"Do you approve?"

He raises his eyebrows. "If you can have anything, what does it matter if I approve?"

She leans back in her seat, her own expression growing dangerous. 

"Because you said this is a game. And I want to win."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still on the fence if she's going to poison him or if she's just going to fuck him a lot in the gown he makes her. Definitely one of those things will happen.


	3. Chapter 3

From her time at the Opera, she knew final fittings never go well; so she was in good company. 

Still, Kylo is in a black mood, and she can’t let loose her avalanche of usual placations and suggestions out from under the blindfold. She just stands while he puts the pins in.

This is what he had warned about her about; true couture, as though threatening her to be able to handle it. She would be naked underneath. 

So when the handwritten message arrived on her desk three days prior, she dared to think personally delivered by him because he  _ still _ hadn’t acquired a second assistant, to keep her schedule open for her final fitting, she knew it was the last warning. 

And she knew, with his level of detail, she would look fine as it was. Could fake a cold. Opt out, apologize profusely, and wear the dress as it was. Probably at 99% perfect. At the end of the day he would not have a final fitting for a backstage worker. 

The note was written on personal stationary, neat script, in nice Montblanc pen. She would be mad if she considered it merely an invitation. 

It was a dare. 

That one percent would be a knife that he’d stab into her back every day of the rest of her life. He would never, ever forgive her for it. Settling. 

Her first mistake in his sewing room was a lesson in that, the week she had started at Star Alliance. She'd scrambled to do a hem in order to please him quickly, not thoroughly, and he hacked through the sloppy stitches with a seam ripper and loathsome expression. Made her do it again.

"Always ask for more," he told her coldly, "as I am always going to ask that of you."

_ Quit _ Rose’s voice echoed in her head as she dressed the morning of the fitting. She had to prepare for that night in the morning before work. Not even a few hours reprieve to go home, drink some wine, maybe have dinner. Hours of overtime and then slipping into his office when everyone went home, putting on a blindfold, and having him go to town.

She opted for a loose slip underneath her dress that day, a comfortable pair of underwear she’d sewn herself, and that’s it; to shed painlessly when she slipped behind the screen in his office to pull the dress on. He’d help her, but there was modesty in having it done quickly. Not leaning over, shirtless, struggling to unsnap jeans and pull socks off. Something fluttery, removed by the slide of two straps down her shoulders. 

Underwear, first, drawn down her legs with the hem of the slip covering her as modestly as possible and then and placed on a chair she knew was in front of her.

Slip floats down next. 

Then, he unzips a garment bag, and she accepts the blindfold.

It’s like a quick change, she’d helped with those backstage of the ballet, in the dark, reaching for someone trained to help, his hand guiding her to step into the dress and easing the snaps closed up her spine. A fluid motion. Attuned. 

The dimensions underneath are elaborate, she is trying to sense through her ribs how many seams make up just the structure holding her body in place. Her breasts are lifted by an internal bustier, firmly so, like a full hand cupped over each. And a seam in the cups rub right against each nipple, which from the cold of the office, and no other more damning reason, stand fully erect. 

He hasn’t even spoken to her since she walked into the room. He sat at his desk when she dropped her purse on the plush velvet settee, scribbling his usual frantic end-of-the-day notes, and got up to retrieve the dress. They moved without speaking, rarely needing to. She found her place. 

The silk is so fine and airy on that dress, she’s slowly getting paranoid this was an elaborate ‘the emperor has no clothes’ revenge fantasy from him for that one time she got mixed up and gave him _her_ coffee with milk in it instead of his own black coffee.

He’s been quiet for a long time. Not moving since she stepped out with it over her shoulders, ready to be adjusted. 

She can feel his rage, a blanket of it, more than she feels the dress.

It must look awful.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes for no reason, and hears him make a single disagreeing noise.

“Not your fault.”

It’s somewhere near her hip, his voice, sinewing around her. She flinches when she feels the fabric tightening around her thighs as he pulls it taut to examine the skirt.

“If there’s anything I can do-”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he swallows, and any noise from him that is not an order with crisp diction terrifies her, “and everything I do.”

“I just feel-” her voice is hitching. Her hands shake. 

“What can I say to put you at ease? What was it you said before,” she wonders if he ponders on this just to torture her,  _ “you’re so good for me.” _

Her limbs turn to honey, flowing towards the floor while she melts into herself. There’s a shy smile she tries to hide. His praise converts her to liquid.

“You wear it so well.”

She peeks out of the edge of the blindfold. 

He might as well be speaking to the dress. 

Maybe his silence, and this whole thing, was more about him getting to do what he wanted out from under the Opera’s nose. Time and resources funneled into the work he’d rather be making. An assistant forced to stay late and help.

She was a clothes hanger for it. 

He is fully on the floor, tucking and stitching and working like a man possessed. 

She was Galatea. The ultimate piece of art.

A stone woman; made from a man.

And an object. 

“How much do I owe you?”

There’s a rumble in his throat. “I thought I told you that this was a gift. And your salary couldn’t cover even the fabric of this gown, let alone the hours of work.”

True, but still rude.

She bites her lip. “No, I meant for the dry cleaning. Can't be easy on the suits. Usually I’m the one kneeling on the floor for you.”

Though her voice is wry; she does lie awake at night worrying about those suits, but she’s seen repeats since he started this and they don’t hold any telling imperfections. Mostly because the floor of his office is clean enough to eat off of.

“Rey,” he fidgets with the fabric in his hands. “You do a lot of things to please me. I am not an easy man to please. I am particular, and you know this. Your research and attention to detail has come such a long way since you’ve begun here.”

She feels his hands lift the fabric over her hip -the pleat from the bodice connecting the fall of the skirt- maybe a half inch upwards, then letting it fall again. Questioning the garment, maybe himself, and some divine muse.

“This is one of those things. I would like to be a position to offer you something to make you happy as well.”

Here’s the thing;

She’s tired. 

This has been a horrible week, they premiere in three days, the Gala is on that night, she’s sewing to the point of her hands twitching in her sleep; clutching the covers, spasming with tension, fingers pinched around a phantom needle.

He could offer her a blank check and only ask that she tell him what in the hell she even wants; she wouldn’t be able to do it. Her mind is blank.

“A second assistant,” she whispers. 

In some ways, it is all she wants.

He touches the back of one of her battered hands.

Maybe she should have said Dolce and Gabbana.

“This season is Hell,” he murmurs. Curls his fingers along her swollen pointer knuckle. She can feel his breath against her hand. 

It is the closest thing to an apology. Still very far.

“I should have brought one on sooner, but you’re better than any two I could put together in this city.”

_ Better.  _

Not even glancing up at her, he examines the hem ponderously, tweaking the fabric off of her skin with a terse pull. “But  _ even in Hades, I am with you.” _

She closes her eyes, fisting her hands into the silk. Quoting Sappho to her, kneeling in front of her, is too much.

_ “Don’t.” _

He does finally break his gaze from the real thing in the room he is in love with. “What?”

“I told you that in private, the Sappho thing, and I…”

She is so dangerously aroused  _ in front of her boss _ in his office. That’s what she truly hates. She is this  _ thing _ to him: to control and dress and order about. And yet he had a voice that made her melt and she wanted nothing more than to obey. 

If he sincerely tried to seduce her, this was done. She’d be over. 

“We aren’t in private here?”

The inflection of his voice is genuinely surprised. He considered them alone. 

“I...you are my boss.”

She can feel him stiffen.

“Then you probably shouldn’t tell  _ your boss _ what today’s pair says.”

She knew all of his pet peeves. One big one was title over reputation. She once overheard her casually refer to him as  _ her boss _ in a flustered rush to an intern and he informed her later, alone in his office in quite a clipped tone, that she may mention him to others by name of Kylo Ren.

She has set him off again.

Thrown out, haphazard, but also a dare.

“H-how do you know that I made them?”

There was maybe five seconds where she set them aside on the chair, and he was helping her into a dress during that time.

“I recognize your work, even from a distance. I know your hand. You have a bold way of cutting a piece. Your embroidery is anything but delicate; you layer it so no one can ignore it, a thick rope, it hardly melts into the weave of the fabric. I like that, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

He pauses, never one to mince words like this. “Sewing your name into the pocket square you gave me was one of the most daring things you could have possibly done.”

To be fair, she didn’t think he’d actually wear it as often as he did, if ever. 

_ Rey _ stitched in scarlet in the black-and-red print. Tiny, on one corner. A moment of petty spite, marking him and the gesture that he would wear her. 

Which was why she added the card to Maz’s, directing him to what he really wanted, a vintage Singer that she couldn’t give him.

“They say,” she licks her lips, “they say... _ you know you can take a closer look if you want.” _

It takes a moment when he realizes this is not the design; but a request. Too verbose, too anxious coming from her lips. It's her both chickening out and allowing him to push forward. Asking for more.

A hot breath leaves his nose. She stands, vulnerable, dressed by him, a Grecian nude half-carved, still trapped in stone, and not yet breathed life into. She feels him stand and walk to the screen behind his desk.

_ “All you sing is desire,” _ he murmurs thoughtfully, reading from her underwear. The pair she’s been wearing all day. Creamy white, high waisted, lace panels up the sides. 

He’s quiet for a moment.

“Let me have these.”

“Yes, sir,” she murmurs, her voice nearly escaping her despite the automatic reply. It’s that desire to please the man who is so hard to please. Unhappy in her dream job. Altering a dress that she’s sure is 99% perfect. _"But..."_

She lifts the blindfold.

She’s lucky the mirror sits behind her, so she can’t see herself, or he’d murder her quickly for revealing the dress.

He thumbs over the teal letters she sewed just once before tucking them into his breast pocket. The white vanishes into the stiff black suit he wore today until it’s impossible to tell her worn panties are in there at all.

Only they know.

"I'd like something I can wear to work," she tells him, "not just a gown I will wear once."

Kylo locks eyes with her. 

He touches his hand over his stuffed pocket, right over his left breast. A gallant-looking gesture, if not for the panties he's feeling the outline of.

"Consider it done."

She straightens her shoulders.

"Then you may keep them."

How has she worked closely to someone for so long when her instincts always tell her he wants to  _ eat _ her?

“Thank you.” 

He just keeps staring at her. She didn’t have to perceive his gaze this way before, without the safety of the blindfold. This is so much attention.

“May I see myself tonight?”

He walks back to her, shaking his head. He ties the silk scarf back around her eyes.

“No, Rey. It’s not finished. Patience.”

Her thighs quiver for a moment until she straightens her spine. 

“I can wait.”

“Good.”

He goes back to work. His fingers nudge her ribcage critically. She lets air fill her lungs.

“Stop holding your breath.”


	4. Chapter 4

She is too tired to worry about her surprise for the next few days. Dress rehearsals, costumes being danced in, garments being adjusted to accommodate the expanse in which a soprano needs to fill her ribcage; it makes for hours of work for her and radio silence from him. 

She does have flashed of panic, in the middle of the night. For once their never-severed connection works in her favor and not just for her demanding boss; he has no qualms about messaging her at three A.M. about where she left a folder of fabric swatches, now she can email him in the middle of the night asking if she needs to bring her own shoes/how she should do her hair for the opening night event.

**All will be provided. Dress for work that day.**

She flops back onto her bed, groaning.

_ Mysterious.  _ Perfect. Just what she needs from him to dull her nerves.

And the night before the Gala, when she is trying to calm down with a glass of wine and not worry about wearing a pair of shoes for the first time, she gets that dreaded  _ ping _ that means he forgot something. 

Kylo Ren can forget something.

He can, truly, he doesn’t do it for long so it never causes disasters. He can forget something, inform his assistant, and probably go right back to sleeping or meditating or whipping a submissive in a sex dungeon; or whatever this man does in his free time. He can forget something, remind her, and move on with his night.

When Kylo Ren forgets something; Rey has to be up all night fixing it.

**One more thing-**

She holds her breath. Is she going to have to email those Japanese silk weavers again; spending all night painstakingly translating a six-sentence message to make sure she doesn’t accidentally offend them?

**I need flowers picked up tomorrow before you come into the office. The florist will be opening around the time you normally arrive. I will excuse a delay of forty five minutes.**

Flowers.

He’s _never_ made her an accessory in his romantic life. What he does, other than obsess over pleating, during his free time is his own business. She is one of the few assistants in Manhattan that has not had to process bills from secret credit cards that hide mistresses, or confirm his attendance of his monthly orgy, or whatever story her fellow abused employees tell to let off steam at the bar after work.

She may the closest person to his life; and she doesn't know a thing. He collects vintage singer sewing machines. He likes bold prints. He knows more about history than anyone whose job it is to know.

Kylo keeps a clean record. Squeaky clean.

So the sloppy _-please pick up some flowers for me-_ is so lazy and inconsequential as a way to abuse his power over her that she's actually disappointed. Flowers can be delivered by the shop for whoever he was so tenderly _fond_ of.

She’s trying not to think of it that way, threading her embroidery machine with shaking hands. 

Flowers for someone else.

She shouldn’t have pictured herself as his date. She didn’t; at least not intentionally. She just pictured designers with the women who wore their designs, the unity and artistic partnership over romance. He wouldn’t be taking her on a date, but maybe she expected the gesture of escorting her, since she would be alone with him, fixing hems and pinning hair back, for the entirety of the evening. He all but declared her time spent at that party belonged to him.

He usually, no matter what, refuses to excuse lateness. This is important then, to get those flowers. 

She checks the address-

The shop is halfway across town. It would take much more than forty five minutes to pick up a bouquet for whoever he was bringing to the gala. 

Bastard.   
  


* * *

 

She doesn’t reach his office until after the curtain rises. That morning there wasn’t _time;_ they were so busy he intercepted her upon arrival to go to the costume shop and took the flowers out of her hands to deliver them to his office  _ himself. _

That's how busy.

She’s his assistant; she’s not a dresser or even under the payroll for the costume department, so she can entrust everything to get cleaned and put away by the people who have been working there for years. If she was one of them, she wouldn’t be going to this party. She’d know who she was. She’d probably feel a lot calmer every night when she got home from work.

That’s the unfortunate thing about the job; even though she can experience working at the opera house, she’s Kylo’s assistant first. She works for him.

He’s waiting in his office, checking on the flowers she picked up, in a vase on his desk. That’s odd. They weren’t wrapped anymore. If they were a gift, they'd still be in paper-

-was it just one of his  _ whims _ he have half a dozen tiger lilies on his desk on their most chaotic day of the year?-

-she takes a deep breath and reaches for her dress zipper, walking carefully across the office to reach the privacy screen.

He's silent, but he gives her a look that has her slow her steps, confused.

He gestures to the door, which opens right as she’s exposed most of her spine from her unzipped dress. 

Rey flinches as an annoyed-looking stylist from the costume department walks into the office, a small kit in her hands. Rey didn’t work closely with her, she was in charge of hair and makeup, and other than passing on his specifications for where headdresses should sit on a performer’s head; their paths didn’t cross.

It still does not look good that she has her dress casually open as her boss lounges against his desk.

She quickly zips back up, ashamed, and takes the seat that is offered to her.

The process takes fifteen minutes. Her hair is folded into a chignon. Beneath the tuck of her hair, at the base of her neck, the stylist cuts the stems and then pins four of the tiger lilies to sprout from the base of her skull. Asymmetrically, so one orange flower is noticeably under her ear, the furthest from it resting at the center of her neck. 

She tilts her head in the mirror she’s been offered, looking neat but wild with the flora blossoming out from under her tidy hair; she can’t imagine the dress that goes with it.

But she sits very still for her makeup to be done, quickly, again; she’s no star tonight, despite the theatricality of the occasion. This is too much fuss already, she can tell the assistant is annoyed by having to do this.

Rey sits still and tries to be good. Not for the stylist, but for Kylo, who watches the proceedings with his arms crossed.

No one speaks the entire time. She just nods when she is shown things. Her hair. Her face. 

It’s clearly not really up to her. 

She feels like his plaything.

But she likes it. She loves her hair, she feels like his Persephone. She likes her makeup, she feels like the best version of herself.

And she’s fucking  _ wet _ because of it.

The stylist leaves.

Kylo sits up from his lean on his desk, as though indicating she lead, and Rey goes to the screen. He follows.

He wraps the blindfold around his hand first, motioning to it. She’s not sure why neither of them can speak yet. It’s odd they can’t watch the opera being performed as it happens; they do this instead. 

This is the real show.

Her eyes flicker to his fist.

Her name stretched across the fabric on his knuckles, as she embroidered it there months ago.

“You don’t have to come tonight,” he tilts his head, meeting her eyes carefully. “If you don’t want.”

This is  _ madness. _ All these weeks of agonizing fittings and pinpricks and long hours? With her face made up and her hair done, worrying about how she was going to look in his dress? And suddenly he offers her the chance to turn back?

But what she’s consenting to has never felt like it was just a dress, to pardon the pun, no strings attached. 

She swallows and nods.

“I don’t know what kind of person I would be if I didn’t at least see it.”

She holds her breath as he ties it around her eyes, and then unzips her himself in one fluid motion. She shivers when she undresses. He helps more than the other times. If anything, he seems impatient for the undressing to be over quickly.

She feels him step away. 

Her stomach  _ drops. _

He didn’t have the finished gown right there beside them. He has to cross the room to get it. She’s naked, her clothes taken, and he leaves her there, blindfolded.

A cruel joke. He was still mad about the decaf incident. 

“I can’t...Rey, come here.”

He sounds frustrated, distracted.

_ “What?” _

Her voice can’t come out any stronger than a whimper.

“I can’t manage around the chair. Come here.”

The screen divides a private space in a tight corner. He might be telling the truth -he sounds flustered like he's telling the truth- but what he's asking for...

“I-” her knee knocks into the chair in front of her. She wobbles. Flushes everywhere. 

“Please,” he adds, and again, it is not just about crossing the room for him.

“I could trip,” she mumbles, her face so red she feels that she could boil an egg on her skin.

There’s a soft, relenting breath. “Then crawl.”

There's the whisper of him moving across the room.

She whimpers, something touches her hand-

Terry cloth. 

He’s handing her a towel.

The rare, terrifying third option. 

Yes to play the game.

No to end it.

And a compromise that will only disappoint him and make the game harder.

"Take it," he urges.

But he steps back to the gown, and she hears him unzip the garment bag. She chews her lower lip. She could remove the blindfold at any time. What could he do, fire her? Finally set her free?

Even though it strikes her as wrong; Rey wants things.

She saw her face. She saw her hair.

She likes what he has done to her.

She wants to wear pretty dresses and eat caviar-studded blinis. She wants to flirt with her boss and talk about her naughty panties and wear them for him to take home tucked in his pocket as their little secret. She wants a man to dress her well and show her every trick in the book and ask her about what she dreams of wearing. 

She knows it’s wrong.

But if all she has to do is  _ crawl _ to get it, just a little, the bargain seems fair enough. 

Rey drops the towel on the floor, and gets on her knees.

Her cheeks are radiating with her blush, but she blindly feels her way across the rug in his office. Her shoulder brushes padded velvet; the settee, not the gown, she realizes. 

She hears his footsteps become slightly muffled when he steps onto the rug, growing closer. He pauses in front of her. Her shoulders shake.

She sits back on her heels and covers her chest with her arms.

Something hard touches one of her knees. 

The toe of his shoe.

She shivers.

“Head forward,” he says dryly, “I want to see your hair.”

She bows her head. So low that the freckled flowers at her nape face up at him instead of the floor. 

He touches them gently, a hand steadying her neck.

“Thank you,” he breathes, “for getting me these.”

“They were for me,” she replies quietly. Awed. 

His hand lifts off of her. 

“Knees apart,” he instructs, like he’s merely going to measure her inseam.

She complies, hands twisted together under her chin.

Another nudge at her knee, the inside, and there’s a brush of air and something touches between her legs-

She gasps and closes her thighs with a whimper.

Not because he touched her. 

Not even because he only used his shoe to do so.

But because she’s wet, and she  _ knows _ those shoes, immaculate Italian leather, and it is torture to think of ruining them.

She wants to win this game. She wants to be his equal player.

“It’s alright,” his whispers, but she shakes her head. Her body rebels when his toes lift to nudge her sex once more. Her shaking hand tries to hold his foot down.

“I don’t want to get them dirty-”

He smooths a hand down her styled hair, primly tied up to both be out of the way and to flower for him under a clean fold. 

“I’ll  _ ruin _ them,” she keens hopelessly, because he’s gotten her to admit that she’s wet.

She feels him place his foot between her knees. “I want you to.”

He touches his thumb to her painted lips. 

Rey digs her fingers into the rug. Kylo pushes down on her lower lip just hard enough to hurt.

She purses her lips, suctioning her mouth to his skin but not quiet taking him inside. He softens his touch.

“This is what you want?”

“Very much,” he murmurs, smudging her lipstick.

Madness. Madness. Madness. Hades didn't break Persephone by taking her. He broke her piece by piece, spoil by spoil, because ruination is taken in bites before swallows. 

“I want things too,” she informs him. 

She feels him sigh. Relieved.

Bargaining on her knees with a blindfold on. He must think she’s an  _ idiot- _

“I’ll give them to you.”

She opens her mouth for him and sucks his thumb hungrily, thankful to lack her sight for this. She doesn’t want to see. She doesn’t want to think.

She’d be thinking about how  _ ridiculous _ this is, to be covering her breasts with her arms, with her cunt exposed to him, on her knees and licking his skin. 

Or how she just wants it all to just keep going.

He is silk. He is caviar. He is the feeling of trying to sleep on a bed of diamonds.

It is obscenely decadent, and uncomfortable, and far too rich; but you don’t turn it down.

She cannot stop until she sees this through; because she doesn’t like the person who would turn back now.

Not as her hips  _ drop _ to drag her wetness back and forth across his shoe.

She lets out an inhuman sound at the contact of the slick leather against her sex. Her thighs tense and Rey just…

Lets go.

She moans with her mouth full, thankful he plugged it with something good. His thumb dances over her tongue, stroking it, and she presses back against his fingerprint.

“Rub a little faster. That’s it. It’ll be over soon,” he promises in a whisper, and she cries around the thumb in her mouth, applying teeth when her face squinches up and she-

She gets off on the man’s shoe.

She was barely fit for anything more than the foot, it would seem. 

_ And yet, _ she liked it. It spirals down her from belly to cunt, shame in that she liked it, and that she leans into the pats he administers to her head like a faithful dog.

His hand curls around the back of her skull. She continues to suck his thumb. Needy. Her thighs shake where they mount his foot.

“I’ve been working you too hard.”

His thumb withdraws with a thick string of spit stretching from her lips to his skin.

He sounds...regretful. She closes her legs and folds herself gently into the most modest seat possible on the floor. 

“I’m...sorry,” she doesn’t know what she failed to do, or what she should apologize for. But she hears him step away and retrieve the garment bag.

He touches the back of her neck.

“On the contrary,” he makes a huffing sound above her, lifting the dress, “you’ve done so well.”

He touches her shoulder, indicating she should take his hand. She does, and he helps her up off the floor.

There’s tickling everywhere, as he passes the dress over her raised arms. 

She’s sewn into him. He’s working hook-and-eyes dutifully up her spine, lifting her into shape. It’s light material, over the silky lining. She can’t breath until he finishes fastening it onto her. 

“Are you ready to see it?”

She isn’t.

But she removes the blindfold anyway.

So she can see herself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you ready to see the dress?

_ “Oh.” _

It’s not black; which is the most surprising to her.

It  _ might as well _ be black. It’s so deep a burgundy that in any darker lighting the depth of color would be too difficult to differentiate from black. 

The fact that it isn’t, and she isn’t dressed like  _ him, _ is still worthy of some note.

But she was expecting…

She has no idea what she expecting. 

Her shaky, clenched thighs don’t know how to let the rest of her body movie. She quivers as she watches herself in the mirror.

Maybe he shouldn’t -she shouldn’t have made  _ herself- _ cum before viewing the finished piece. She’s too shaken now.

And just relieved he’s not surprising her with...nothing. Or a cruel joke. 

It’s too beautiful to be a joke.

Kylo hovers, watching her observe her reflection. 

The orange flowers look nice with the deep red. She wouldn’t have paired them together, but they work, the subtle shimmer around her waist resembling the shiny innards of a blood orange.

She is not Persephone; she is the fruit.

It’s not wildly...wild. Her fear, something that kept her awake for nights on end, was something ostentatious she’d have to live up to. Or sink into the shadows of, no better than a mannequin. She’s not a prima donna. She’s not the star. But it’s tasteful, and it fits perfectly, and his name is symbolically  _ scrawled _ all over it.

It’s subtle, structured, and beautifully tailored. 

There’s a conservative, high halter neck, which she appreciates if she’s going to be crouching in the floor for most of the evening fixing hems. There’s a slash of bare skin along her spine, her naked arms and shoulders carry most of the attention.

She meets his dark eyes in the mirror. 

She’s supposed to say something. 

It’s an odd position for both of them; Rey has to give approval of his offering. And she is, reeling from moments ago, still getting used to submitting.

It is a unique position of power. He has done something solely to please her.

“I didn’t think I’d see myself in it,” she smoothes her hands over the way the material perfectly clings to her hips. “But I do. It’s-”

She clears her throat. His office is lit warm, not bright, so she sees a glimmer as though through a sheet. Her fingers find the illusion. A screen of black mesh over the sequined adornments; subtle as a hot breath against her neck.

It is only a scattering of embellishment, where the garment gathered to cling at her slenderest part just above her navel is covered with a dusting of stars obscured by smoke.

She puts her hand on her hips, admiring the seductive, somewhat serpentine slickness that her hips had. She’s always considered her figure boyish.

Not under Kylo’s careful eye.

This was crafted with a sincere understanding, she’d dream as far to say  _ appreciation, _ of her body.

“One more thing.”

Could there be anything more? She felt utterly decadent.

Yet suddenly there is a harness dangling under her nose.

It isn’t anything hardcore: it’s just jarring. Surprising. She glances over her should at him, nervously taking what only looks like a triangulation of leather straps, and he guides her arms through it like it’s a fine fur coat. 

It seems tacky at first, but there’s a black leather pouch at one shoulder with something inside-

_ -a sewing kit- _

-and she softens to the practicality of it. A pleased sigh leaves her lips. She won’t have to dig through a tiny clutch for thread when she’s helping out with the performers, getting it stepped on or wine spilled over it. She doesn’t have anything she has to hold or lose. It’s perfectly practical. She shoots her boss a genuinely grateful smile.

Is there a flush of red on his high cheeks? She blinks, but he’s already obscured most of his face with his hair, pretending to adjust a strap.

She looks back up at herself. 

The leather harness is an added edge she didn’t know she wanted.

She looks less like someone’s dream. More like herself, oddly enough.

“Do I do it justice?”

She turns over her shoulder to him, craving the compliment.

Kylo is staring at her reflection.

“It was designed for you to suit it.”

She lets her shoulders sink. He could praise her a little more, she did put up with a lot for this moment.

“...and there were no surprises tonight. Thank you.”

He steps away from her. 

She lets her head tilt back, looking over her dress and her body inside it. There was appreciation in these seams. Though she didn’t entirely trust it. She thinks of Medea, the dress she gave to Jason’s new bride, transforming into a snake to strangle her. Was his first kindness his last?

She turns to ask, maybe say something smart about the color, but he’s shed his suit jacket and is hanging it on a clothing rack behind his desk. She gapes as he removes his shirt as well. 

She closes her eyes quickly. His tuxedo. She had to pick it up this week. The Gala.

“May I…” Rey wets her lips, “help you?”

Kylo’s head turns over his shoulder. He’s shrugging on a pristine white shirt.

“Only if you want to.”

Her hands feel like they’re floating, an affect obviously put on from the gown she’s wearing, as they aid the application of cufflinks to his shirt. 

There’s a smudge of her lipstick on the heel of his thumb, from where she sucked him into her mouth.

There’s a flush of pride at the sight of it.

She lifts onto her toes for only a moment, musing if he deserved a kiss.

His pointer finger settles on her upturned chin. Careful. His eyes on hers. 

“I don’t want to muss you up,” he whispers; and she knows it’s a threat he will carry out irreparably if she tests him. She swallows and goes back to tucking his shirt into his trousers. “Before anyone else can see my work.”

“Yes, sir. Then it’s only fair,” she feels his breath against her cheek, emboldened by the warmth between her legs and seeing him slide off the shoes he made her ruin. Her wetness is running down her thighs, “that I should get to dress you tonight, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Gala is not where she’s meant to feel glamorous. She knew that going in. She is an assistant. She is exactly where she pictured, fixing a hem for a crone on the board of directors, within twenty minutes of arriving. 

The Cinderella, or as Kylo would correct her,  _ Cendrillon, _ moment had already passed as she finds herself on her knees with a needle in her teeth in the women’s washroom.

But she got to walk into the Gala on Kylo’s arm. She got the bathing light of camera flashes. She got a few pointed questions about her relevance to the event, which was an outrage, but one her boss valiantly shielded her from with a ferocity that shocked her to her core.

“My assistant, Rey, who was  _ integral _ to the execution of this season.”

The praise almost made her fall off her heels. 

She hums to herself a few notes from the opening night’s orchestra. The little leather shoulder straps are so convenient for storage, she should talk to him about incorporating them into more outfits. Maybe belts, utilizing a grecian drape, lots of them wound around the waist-

An older woman looking at herself in the mirror in a too-tight velvet gown has a strap snap off the bodice right in front of her heavily painted eyes. She catches Rey see this, and even though Rey tries to hunch into her already-present work, she snaps her fingers a few times in Rey’s general direction. 

“Can you-” and she points to her jutting-out chest, like wording her order was too much to do for someone of Rey’s status. 

Rey grits her teeth, tying off the last few stitches so the hem she mended would hold for the night, at least, and winces as she gets off the floor. Clever Kylo. Black fabric would have held a sheen of dust from the ground she had to kneel on.

Perhaps the joke was dressing her up to work her hard. Just a dog following orders while dressed like a false queen.

 

* * *

 

 

She takes her first drink of the evening, a wine that matches her gown, with a tired flush on her cheeks. 

She’s alone at this party, without any work to do. Everyone is sufficiently drunk enough to ignore what wasn’t a fashion emergency. She feels relieved, because it did feel like work. Fabulous work, but she hasn’t been able to rest in what’s felt like months. 

Probably, she muses as she sips, because that’s true. 

Appreciative, at least inquisitive, looks slide over her now that she’s on her own. She tries not to read into them. But it’s the most she’s ever felt  _ looked at _ before.

A high squeal of a laugh practically shakes the chandelier above her head. Rey tries not to wince as she looks for the source. 

A prima ballerina and Kylo talking intimately in the corner.

She merely arrived with Kylo; it doesn’t make him her date. She curses the image of herself on his arm, being led around by someone who knew these people, who felt more secure in their place among them.

She was not Kylo’s responsibility.

He could have helped her with all the  _ looks _ though. Instead she is the art without the artists’ statement. And people were too drunk or stupid to let it speak for itself.

She almost bites her wineglass for her next sip, turning away, but Kylo catches her eye and waves her over.

She tries to ignore his summons. But his eyes are so intent. And she’s working right now. 

And Kylo is the boss. 

She fists her free hand, actually wishing for a stupid, obnoxious purse to fiddle with, but it’s just her and her wine. Curse him for freeing up her anxious hands. 

“This should be strange for you, Bazine,” he gestures to Rey like she was something to be observed. “Seeing Rey on this side of the process after she’s fit you for so many things.”

_ “Lovely _ things,” Bazine assures him, a smile on her dark lips. 

He was showing her off to this show’s star. What a ridiculous gesture.

His eyes warm her face. 

“Show her how pretty you are.”

Rey keeps her chin straight; but doesn’t look right at either of them.

As they discuss Kylo and his  _ things. _

“I could offer you a closer look,” Kylo takes a sip of his cocktail, turning his gaze back to Bazine, “If Rey would be so accommodating.”

She would love to tell him no. But Bazine smiles prettily at her, one perfect brow poised, and for the first moment Rey perceives a genuine thirst from the other woman.

“Kylo,” she flutters her gaze at him. Already trying to play his game. 

"Rey."

Damn him and his tempting prizes.

He smiles mysteriously.

She takes one steadying breath and nods.

his eyes light up, though he hides it well. She just knows him. He can't hide a lot from her.

“Follow me, won’t you?”

But it is Rey’s arm that he takes and leads to the stairwell. Bazine closely behind them.

The party is on several floors of the opera house, and he means to take them...between two, because he stops them on the winding stairs. Rey loves these stairwells; the rounded walls, the velvet interior, the red brocade fabric. She looks like she belongs here as well, with the low-lit sconces dancing over her. Making her as orange and burgundy as Kylo must have intended. 

He’d really designed around her attending this party.

Clever bastard. 

Kylo takes her wineglass out of her hands and sets it down on the floor. He’s set down his drink before the ascent. 

They all have hands free.

He clears his throat, turning his attention back to Bazine.

“I’d like to show you some of the detail on the back.” 

It is his only implied instruction to Rey, who turns nervously to face the wall. 

His hands are already on the fabric. Bazine's join them; purposefully tugging on the leather harness.

“Specifically, the lining. Pieces like this takes a great deal of time to build..."

The soft, silky outer layer has been undone at the back. Freeing the corset details of the under layer; the hook-and-eye enclosures, the boning, the silky intimacy.

Rey can’t breathe. Kylo picked a high floor where they wouldn’t be found, and still, there’s a chance someone would see her with her dress undone for a costumer and a ballerina leering at her back.

Bazine’s slender fingers touch her spine through the fabric.

“The fit is lovely over her, Kylo, you’ve done a magnificent job with her.” 

Rey traces a brocade pattern in the fabric on the wall with her eyes. Trying to hold back a few priggish comments about how she was  _ right there. _

Kylo steps closer, his breath washing over her neck.

He has to be doing this on purpose.

“Here, the detail of the lining inside is worth exploring. Surely you’re familiar with this kind of enclosure backstage-”

Her breath leaves her entirely when Kylo instruct Bazine to begin to unfasten her dress. 

“Sneaky thing,” Bazine breathes, peeling back a layer to expose Rey’s lower back. She tries not to tremble. To be the perfect model. “You’ve hidden your name right here, along her spine?”

“He likes to mark people,” Rey breathes out, and unnoticed to Bazine, who is stroking his stitching, and the bare skin of her back, Kylo squeezes her hip possessively.

“Hmm, I suppose she is marked. Do you object to this?”

Two people are pawing around at her dress, undone at the back, causing tightness at the waist and little jerks on the fabric against her nipples and everything is supposed to be held together by Kylo’s work and he’s letting it all go slack.

"I-I don't know."

She bites down on a whimper with Bazine’s mouth hovering over her neck.

“I think it’s lovely that the artist can sign his name to his work, right, Rey?”

Rey places a shaking hand up against the wall in front of her and nods feebly. 

“Hmm,” Bazine takes a sip of wine and steps back; observing her as one does a painting in a particularly boring exhibit. 

“Well done, Ren,” she adds, dancing her finger up and down Rey’s bare spine as she trembles, “thank you for showing her off to me.”

Rey’s heart is in her throat. The teasing was too much; he has really done it and pushed her too far this time.

He had to pick a dancer for the company; someone whose body Rey was intimately familiar with because she dressed it five nights a week.

She is trying her hardest not to picture Kylo throwing all one hundred and seven pounds of Bazine around in his bed...and on his desk, and the settee in his office. She fails. Pretty, lithe Bazine being taken from behind. Graceful, strong Bazine opening her thighs from him to come between.

Kylo's massive body pinning her down and taking the way Rey wanted to be taken.

She fails to block all of these images, and a damn breaks inside her; and instead she flows into them. 

Rey inserts herself into the scenes that make her stomach twist. Bazine on her lap, kissing her, as Kylo fucks her from behind. Her tits in Bazine’s dark painted mouth. Kylo’s adept fingers splitting her own lips to stroke her clit as Bazine sucks his cock.

Wanting is so terrible. It awakens every dark thing inside her.

Kylo is silent and still behind her. She has to blink away the fantasies, relax the way her limbs are locked. 

He knows. 

He can sense this in her at this point.

“Thank you for the private tour,” the ballerina kisses his cheek. Rey just stands there. A stupid, silent mannequin.

Bazine leaves them, her footsteps as light as a cat’s as she descends back down to the party.

Kylo is left alone with his creation. 

“I don’t know who exactly that was meant to seduce,” Rey sighs quietly, breathless somehow still, as he slowly works the fastenings back up her spine. Like he’s knitting her back together.

Piercing and quick, she can almost feel his smile strike like a dash of lightning and then vanish from his face.

She stares at the shadows in the brocade. Trembling.

He takes a bearlike exhale and then kisses her throat, right under the orange lilies he forced her to race to work this morning to fetch for him.

“Probably myself,” he replies honestly, his voice rumbling as he does her up, “two beautiful women playing with my things. What more can I ask for?”

His tone is playful, and appreciative, and smug. He nibbles up and down her neck. She's wet and burning for him, and she hates him.

The place Bazine had touched her, where she now knew his name sat, burns on her skin. When he was done putting her back together, she spins on her heel and leans her shoulders against the wall.

To rest. And to face him head on when he was so infuriating.

She crosses her arms around herself. 

Not looking at him.

He leans closer to her slouched form against the wall. Intrigued. Not done with her just yet

“Unless that seduced you in particular,” his expression is wicked, “did it, Rey?”

She lowers her chin.

“Did you...pick me out for her? For you and her?”

Her voice is shyer than she means it to be.

He raises his eyebrows.

“I picked her out for  _ you. _ If you-”

For the first time she sees vulnerability in his expression; as though he meant something else that she did not yet understand.

_ Intellectual men who are fine with bisexuality.  _

A clumsy gift at her feet, really, amongst everything else he had given her this evening. Still, her hands come up to his cheeks. 

A sigh leaves her lips.

He wanted to show her just _how fine_ with it he was.

Every time he was terrible; what bled out of her from it was so good. 

She hopes he can read from her expression that she understands now, and-

Shows gratitude.

“I can’t fault you very much, Kylo Ren,” she pulls the lapels of his jacket towards her with one hand. He obliges like a perfect gentleman. Her position on the wall firms up to press herself into his body. “I’m...very…”

“Wet?” he tries, pressing a lush kiss to her mouth.

Is this-the first? Out of everything else? She can’t quite think back on another. But it’s so intimate. Like they already know each other.

“Grateful,” she groans, his hands sliding the silky material up her thighs, “a-and, yes, fuck, I am...”

His fingers find it first. 

Soaked.

He has this mildly triumphant smile on his face as his fingers tease her. 

“If you tell me what’s wrong, then maybe I can help you, Rey.”

She straightens, head resting against the silk wallpaper, watching the shadows dance across his face. “I’m  _ very _ wet, Mr. Ren, and I had to rub my, my  _ pussy _ up against something hard, and nothing went inside me-”

“And you wanted something inside?”

There’s a finger sliding between her labia before she can even answer the question. His interrogation continues: “Is that it?”

She nods. 

This kind of dirty talk feels like holding her breath. Between every verbal burst, she has to physically recover from the heart-pounding humiliation.

And she likes it. 

You can like swimming even when it’s getting harder and harder to hold your breath.

“Hmm,” he muses, pulling something out of his pocket.

One of those pretentious Montblanc pens.

He holds it out to her. 

“Hold this.”

She huffs out an irritated breath. He was just doing  _ so well- _

He’s lifting her skirts to her waist. Crouches down on the balls of his feet. 

Takes the pen, hands her the bunched-up skirts.

“Now hold these,” he tilts his head to the side, examining her sex like he’s checking faulty wiring between her fucking legs.

Still, there’s an appeal to seeing him like this.

On his knees for her in a tuxedo.

The cap of the pen swipes through her lips.

“Oh-oh” she stutters.

He actually smiles as he wiggles it against her entrance. 

“Something inside, here?”

He’s not serious. 

The skinny pen breeches her with his eyes locked on hers.

He’s deadly serious.

He’s going to fuck her with a pen that costs more than a week’s groceries. 

“Kylo,” she starts, clenching down, and the slickness of the foreign object does make her eyes white out. 

He purrs slightly, kissing her thighs. 

“You said you wanted  _ something _ inside, Rey. I'm putting something inside you. I’m trying to help.”

His tone is too innocent and too greatly pleased with his own cleverness.

Why couldn’t he make this easy and just  _ fuck her? _

“Will you make me cum with your special pen?”

The teasing words fall out of her lips before she realizes she’s laughing at this. All of it.

Fuck, this is partially her fault for liking it so damn much. Her hips bear down until the pen is fully inside, and his grasp on it with his fingers nudges the tips against her lips as well. 

That makes her jolt excitedly. 

“Do you truly enjoy dirtying all of my nice things? 

She writhes against the hard, thin intrusion. Thoughtfully, he wiggles the pen like he’s tapping it in contemplation against his desk. It thuds, muted by her walls, against a spot inside her that has her seeing stars. 

“I enjoy  _ coming,” _ Rey takes her skirts into one hand and pulls his gorgeous, rich hair with the other, “is that enough? Can you help me?”

She feels her expression soften into something he couldn’t say no to. Her hand slides down to curl loosely around his throat; so soft and white and strong under her fingers. She can feel him swallow.

It's intimate. Good.

He smiles up at her. Obliging. 

The pen tapping her insides, feeling so wrong, so invasive, and so right. 

“Naughty girl,” he teases, kissing her inner thigh while she whimpers and now  _ pleads _ to come, “and a good one, aren’t you? My little contradiction. I love when you make all my nice things dirty with this pretty cunt. I wonder what other games can we play with it?”

“Oh,” Her fingers tangle in his hair, cradling him when his tongue stretches out to lap her engorged clitoris, “ohhh.”

He tastes her wetness like he does everything else that he condescends to give his full attention. Purposefully, passionately, and with focus. 

Her thighs tremble. She’s in danger of sliding straight down the wall. Tumbling down the velvet stairs. 

But he holds her up. 

“Do you like your dress?”

“Yes,” the pen is sliding, slick and hard, back and forth against her special spot, “Do you like how I look in my dress?”

He dances his tongue over her clit before answering.

“Don’t you think I’m showing you just how much?”

He spreads her lips open with his fingers and gives these little fluttery kisses all over her swollen red bud. 

And all the while he's treating her clit so lovingly, he's fucking a pen into her, the single naughtiest thing that's happened to her since...two hours ago, and she _loves_ it.

“Mhmm,” she agrees.

“Will you take your reward now, Rey?”

“Yes,” she breathes, and her climax is blinding like the death of a star when he sucks her clit into his mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

They exit the stairwell together. They get a fresh round of drinks and mingle. 

They’re not together. She is not his date. 

But he still looks to her, is still respectfully quiet and thoughtful, whenever she speaks to someone who approaches them. 

He shields her from little requests; people popping over her to ask to use their camera to take pictures of them, of someone looking for a safety pin, or someone to fetch a drink like anyone deemed lower than them was universally open to serve. 

He has deemed her time worthy of being above that, at least at this point in the evening. She is nothing but tired, so she lets herself just be grateful.

It still makes heat flurry through her chest, pride, that he has removed her from her duties.

But they can’t be glued to each other forever. They drift to other conversations, other people’s demands. She can sense his awareness of her. She can note him bask in hers of him.

She does not understand this man. 

“I can’t praise your son enough on his end of things. The production looked divine from out seats.”

Rey stills, her wine pressed to her lips, at the voices at the edge of the room. 

Leia and a trustee are deep in conversation. Leia looks less than thrilled with the compliment.

“I don’t think we have much time to appreciate it. This is his last season.”

Rey's stomach twists in dread.

For one thing, she is just an assistant. An assistant was a personal sort of thing for men like him. Would his replacement...want to keep her around? Would she be searching for a new job in a few months?

And second; Kylo was so good at his job. She was learning so much from him. Was this really...really for the best?

Third: whatever this was, it was just starting, and was she ready for it to end?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I know we're all curious for the dress: there's no one dress it's based on, but here is a board of a few gowns I pulled inspo from!](https://twitter.com/secretreylo/status/1100959101146804224)

**Author's Note:**

> Rey and her boss are going to have so much fun at that Gala, you guys.


End file.
